A Ship for Shepard
by cellotlix
Summary: "Sam Shepard hated birthdays. Her mother made an effort to fill them with presents and games and a cake so delicious it could only possibly happen once a year, but because Shepard never got what she truly wanted, she figured the entire institution of birthdays was a failure. And what Shepard truly wanted was to meet her father." Vignettes on family, loss, and love.


Sam Shepard hated birthdays. As she'd had five previous to this one, she figured she was enough of an expert on the matter to form an opinion, and her opinion was that birthdays were stupid. Her mother made an effort to fill them with presents and games and a cake so delicious it could only possibly happen once a year, but because Shepard never got what she truly wanted, she figured the entire institution of birthdays was a failure.

And what Shepard truly wanted was to meet her father.

Her mother Hannah was a Captain in the Alliance, so Shepard had lived her whole life on a ship. It was uncommon but not unheard of; while most in the same situation sent their children away to boarding schools, Mama decided to raise Shepard at her side, so she could learn and be loved. Because of this, it did not immediately occur to Shepard that she was missing a father; she'd believed that families consisted of mothers and their children until she learned about it during lessons.

"Why don't I have a father?" she'd asked that first time, as soon as she was old enough to express herself.

Hannah had taken her daughter's small shoulders in her hands and held her tightly. "You do, Sammy-bean."

"Why isn't he here? He's alive, right?"

"OF course he is." But this question gave Hannah pause. She seemed to stare at a place just above Shepard's head, and the silence drew longer. "Tell you what. Someday when you're older, I'll tell you all about him, okay?"

"Why can't I know now?"

"Because it's . . . it's a hard thing for me to talk about."

But Shepard didn't understand hard things and adult troubles. All she understood was that she had a father out there somewhere, he was alive, and he wasn't there for her. She understood that her mother might even be responsible for this harsh reality. And it drove a wedge between them.

So on the day of Shepard's sixth birthday, she withdrew. She'd abandoned any hope of ever getting what she truly desired, so in her mind birthdays were intolerable and useless. She refused to eat the cake her mother had made and crossed her arms stoutly over her chest when the presents were brought out. Shepard didn't see Hannah's crestfallen expression or the incredible sadness in her eyes; all she knew was her own anger, endlessly multiplying in her heart.

The day had almost passed when Shepard heard the familiar docking protocols, the slight shuddering of the ship as it attached to another. Hannah looked up toward the doorway, and her sad expression lifted somewhat.

Shepard's curiosity quickly outweighed her anger at her mother. "What is it?"

"A friend," Hannah said, smiling a little. "And I think he has something for you."

"Is he my father?" Shepard asked, standing up so quickly that she knocked over her chair.

But Hannah had gotten to her feet and strode quickly from the room, leaving Shepard alone with her melted ice cream, unopened presents and foul temper. Of course it wasn't her father, Shepard fumed. It never was. Since Mama always deflected questions about her father even though she knew how important it was to Shepard, she must not care. Therefore, Shepard decided she didn't care either.

She'd been fully prepared to resume her cold-war against her mother and her friend when Hannah strode back into the cabin with an older man in tow. Shepard's first impression of the man was that he looked very stern, and immediately thoughts of rebellion faded away. But his eyes were blue, she saw - just like hers - and they were kind. He held a wrapped parcel behind his back.

"Samantha, say hello to my friend Admiral Hackett."

Shepard held out her small hand as formally as she could manage, and the man knelt down to her level so she didn't have to reach up. "It's nice to meet you, sir," she said, looking down at her feet. Suddenly, she was overcome with uncharacteristic shyness.

"It's nice to meet you too," he said. "You can call me Steven for now, how's that?"

Shepard did not really know what to make of this; most of the old people she knew insisted on formality when dealing with the younger generation, especially since most of them were military and preferred their honorifics attached to their name. "All right," she said. If he wanted to be known by his first name, that was fine, but she would insist on formality herself, if only in her thoughts.

"I brought you something for your birthday," he said, offering her the parcel that he'd hid behind his back with almost awkward earnestness. "Your mother told me you're six today."

"That's right," Shepard mumbled. She didn't appreciate the reminder.

The Admiral rocked back on his heels, and she thought it was strange that such a distinguished adult would be so nervous. "Go on," he urged her, smiling for her benefit. "Open it."

She had intended to leave all the presents her mother got her unopened as a matter of principle, but looking at this tough yet earnest man, she couldn't punish him in the same way. She ripped the fancy paper off the parcel and left it in a shredded pile at her feet.

(It would be a lot easier to maintain her rebellion against her cruel mother if presents were not so fun to open.)

Once she'd decimated the paper, she struggled to read the words on the box. "It's a ship!" she said excitedly, shaking the box a little in her enthusiasm, and she was surprised to hear the rattle of multiple pieces inside. Her face fell. "Is it broken?"

"No," he assured her. "It's supposed to come in pieces."

"Why?"

"So you can put it together yourself."

Shepard frowned. "But I don't know how," she admitted, watching her feet again.

The Admiral gave her a tentative smile. "Well, how about I help you?"

After considering for half a second, Shepard nodded shyly, and together the two of them dumped the contents of the box on the table, separating the parts into like piles with great concentration. They worked together for the rest of the evening, slowly piecing together the model ship, and as the hours passed, Shepard felt considerably happier than she had in a long time. The Admiral was patient with her, yet he did not coddle when she came across a piece that did not seem to fit. He guided her toward the solution without treating her as if she was stupid.

When the ship was completed, Shepard couldn't contain her excitement. "Look, Mama!" she exclaimed, hopping up so quickly she knocked over her chair and sent the ship box tumbling to the ground. "We did it!"

"I see that. Thank the Admiral for helping you."

Shepard looked up at him, clutching the completed ship close to her chest. "Thank you for helping me. And for the present. It's my favorite."

"You're very welcome."

With that, Shepard dashed away to her bunk, eager to introduce her new toy to the rest. Hannah shot a quick glance at Hackett as he came to stand at her side, and for a moment he wondered if perhaps he should just leave. But she offered him a wry smile instead. "You'd think you'd raised children all your life."

Hackett shrugged. "Not even close. However, she's quite a lot like another Shepard I know."

"She is, isn't she?" Hannah watched her difficult daughter play with love in her heart - love, but also wariness. "You've saved the institution of birthdays."

Hackett harrumphed. "Part of me thinks you were exaggerating. She was nothing but pleasant to me."

"Of course she was. You're a stranger, and I've raised her to be polite to strangers."

There was no mistaking the bite to Hannah's voice, the slightest snap on the word 'stranger'. Hackett took off his cap and ran his hand over his hair, making it stand on end. "So . . . how have you been, Hannah?"

"I've been well," Hannah replied, her voice cool. "Busy. I'm a Captain and a mother. I don't have much time to keep in touch."

"I wasn't-"

"I know."

They fell into stilted silence - Hannah with her arms crossed defensively over her chest, Hackett looking as if he'd like to stuff the words back into his mouth. "You could have had help, if you wanted it. A maternity leave. A better post."

"I didn't want it," Hannah returned placidly. "I didn't need it."

"I didn't say that you did." Hackett fell silent, watching the child play with her new toy. She was nearly Hannah Shepard in miniature - the same bright red hair, same delicate features, same stark angular nose. The only difference between them was that Hannah's eyes were green - the only shade of green he'd ever really noticed in his life.

"Thank you for coming," Hannah said after a while. "She's been so upset about her father these days, and that's the one thing I can't give her. Your being here . . . well, I'd like to believe that it helped."

"I'd like to believe that, too." He folded his hands behind his back and attempted to find the words that would make this awkward question less ridiculous, though he knew full well it was likely an uphill battle. Things hadn't been the same, not since . . . Hackett cleared his throat. "So . . . there's no father, then?"

"No," was Hannah's curt reply.

He couldn't say he was thrilled with the prospect of Hannah with another man, though he knew full well he had no claim to her, not anymore. He tried again. "It's not . . . it's not -?"

This time her answer nearly erupted from her with the force of an explosion; he'd have taken cover if there was any to be had. "No!" she said, eyes flashing.

He was quiet for a moment. "Would you tell me if it was?"

For the first time since he'd boarded Hannah Shepard's ship, she looked him full on, and it felt just as he remembered; the same swoop-lurch, the same pounding of his heart, only this time accompanied with the bitterness of memory, and how things had soured. "What do you think?" she said, and he knew that it was the only answer he deserved.

* * *

Every year after that momentous sixth birthday, the Admiral made it a sacred ritual to visit Shepard and her mother for her birthday, always bearing a model ship that they would assemble together, side by side. Shepard could hardly remember when she felt birthdays were a slight and a chore; instead, she counted down the days, marking them closely and delighting as they passed.

"I wish the Admiral was my father," she told Hannah the day before she turned eleven.

She never forgot her mother's reaction. Hannah had jumped as if Shepard had slapped her hard, and for a brief moment her eyes were hooded with such sorrow that Shepard did not know if she would ever be able to understand the breadth of it. She was struck, then, by how much of a mystery her mother was, if she could say something so innocuous and have it wound her so deeply.

That year, Hannah refused to see the Admiral. She did not bar him access from her ship because she knew how much it meant to Shepard, but she removed herself until he'd gone. And even then, Shepard felt as if from that moment on, there was a wall separating the two of them, when she'd previously believed they were inseparable.

* * *

"_Is everything all right_?"

Hannah would have preferred to ignore this particular comm transmission, but Steven was her superior and such a breach of protocol would not be met kindly. "Yes," she said coolly, stepping into view after she'd tied her hair back in a severe bun. "Everything is just fine."

Steven seemed almost cowed. "_I just wondered when I didn't see you."_

"For god's sake, Steven, I have a ship to run. I can't attend to your personal needs and keep my ship running smoothly at the same time."

A flicker of something crossed his expression, almost like a shadow. "_All right. I meant no harm."_

He never did. Though, that didn't matter when all was said and done.

"Is that all?"

"_Is Sam all right?"_

Hannah felt two very distinct reactions to hearing Steven call her daughter by her colloquial name: part tenderness, part jealousy. As with all things emotional, she reacted defensively. "Why?"

"_She was down today, is all. I worried."_

"She's not your child to worry about."

Whatever she'd said finally seemed to push him over the edge. His gaze hardened and his mouth pressed into a firm line. _"I'd like you to tell me what this is about, Hannah," _he said sharply.

Dammit. He'd never pull rank with her in personal matters, for he felt it was an abuse of power, but he didn't need to. She mirrored him, arms crossed tightly over her chest. "She told me she wished you were her father today. I did not react . . . like I should have."

"_Oh, Hannah,"_ he said, like a sigh. Like before.

"Goodbye, Steven."

* * *

The year Shepard turned sixteen, she was sent off to the Ascension program to hone her burgeoning biotic talents. She left with a duffel full of clothes, a picture of her mother, and the first model ship the Admiral had given to her.

She didn't expect anything special for her birthday. She was totally submerged in the program, with every waking hour spent developing her talents, not to mention she had decided she was too old for birthdays and sentimentality. She was sixteen now, for god's sake, and much too old for her ritual of ship-building with the Admiral.

She was also too old to yearn for a father. From that the moment she'd told Hannah of her wish and seen how deeply those words had wounded her, Shepard put it on the shelf with other childish things she had no time for, like romantic stories and chocolate.

She decided she was going to be strong and controlled, like her mother.

So it was a surprise when she was instructed to go to the airlock to meet a pair of guests who wished to see her. It didn't even occur that it was her mother and the Admiral - she'd expected someone official, instead. Though after further thought, she realized it was likely they'd posed as official guests to get their way. A storied Admiral and Captain of the Alliance Navy? They could go wherever they wanted, whenever the slightest fancy struck.

(That wasn't the sole reason she was interested in a career with the Alliance, but it was certainly one of them.)

"Mom!" Shepard exclaimed when she caught sight of her, stepping through the airlock as if she owned the place. "Admiral Hackett? What are you doing here?"

"It's your birthday, isn't it?" Hannah said, wrapping Shepard in a warm embrace. "You're not too old for those, yet."

"I don't know about that," Shepard mumbled, but she returned the hug. "I don't know if I'm allowed out of my classes -"

"It's been taken care of," Hackett told her. "Last I heard, sixteen is an eventful birthday." He cleared his throat and shot Hannah an uncomfortable look, resuming only after she nodded. "Your mother and I thought we'd surprise you."

Shepard was skeptical. Ever since she'd been old enough to notice, she'd detected a something strange between her mother and the Admiral. Supposedly, they were friends - at least, that's what her mother insisted to Shepard's face - but whenever they thought she wasn't looking, the flimsy veneer of friendliness would fade in favor of something bitter, or perhaps even sorrowful. Shepard saw the way the Admiral looked at her mother, and the way her mother tried not to look at him at all.

"Right," Shepard managed. "Well . . . come on, then."

She liked to pretend she was very grown up and mature these days, but the minute the Admiral procured the customary parcel she could not contain her enthusiasm. In all the years they'd shared this ritual, she'd never told him which models she'd had her eye on, but it never changed that he seemed to know regardless. And this year especially, he did not disappoint.

"The new Everest-class dreadnaught," she grinned, her fingers skimming lightly over the box. "How do you always know?"

The Admiral shrugged, though she could tell he was pleased. "Thought it looked nice in the store," he explained modestly.

"And you helm one of these bad boys, don't you?"

"For now," he smiled.

From her mother, she received a new Omni-tool, the new Savant model. Hannah preferred to give practical, logical things because those were the kinds of things she preferred to receive; she'd always said she had little use for anything else, if only because there wasn't any room for them on a starship. Shepard grinned as she installed the Omni-tool, watching it flash to life. "Just what I needed."

"I know," said Hannah, and it seemed to Shepard that her smile was a little smug.

The visit progressed much better than Shepard had any right to expect. For once, her mother was at ease, trading stories with the Admiral without her usual reserve, and for his part, he looked happier than she'd seen him in a long time. Shepard had told herself almost every day for years that she didn't mind that it was just her and her mother, and that Hannah's strange aversion to the Admiral didn't bother her, but in the face of what could have been, she let a small part of herself acknowledge it as a lie.

"I've been thinking," she finally said, a few hours later.

"Always the portent of trouble," Hannah returned, whip-fast.

"Har, har." Shepard studied their faces, still light from the earlier conversation. "I want to join the Alliance when I graduate. I want to be an officer."

She watched them closely; a nearly identical flash crossed their eyes, hooded by bitter experience, trials she wondered if she would ever know or understand. Her mother recovered first. "Are you sure?"

"I've thought about it a lot. I think I could do some good. Just . . . just like you. Both of you.

"It's not an easy life," the Admiral said softly.

For once, her mother agreed. "If you ever believe you'll want something peaceful or normal, you should find another occupation."

"What do you mean?"

"If you want a normal family or a career where your word will never be the difference between a man's life and death, you will be bitterly unhappy as an Alliance officer. When you take that oath, you are swearing to the people of the Alliance that you will put them before your personal wants, and that's not an easy promise to make."

Shepard didn't know what she was expecting, but she certainly wasn't expecting to be lectured for wanting to join the Alliance. "I thought you'd be pleased," she accused. "Proud, even. I'm telling you that you're - you're both the reason I thought about this for myself."

Hannah frowned. "If you want to join the Alliance because you think it will impress me, I urge you to reconsider."

"No, that's not - that's not what I'm saying," Shepard argued. Her hands were shaking and something had curdled in her gut, like sour milk. The light mood from earlier had all but been destroyed, all because she opened her stupid mouth, all because she'd thought her mother would feel pride knowing that her only daughter wished for nothing more than to follow in her footsteps. She stood suddenly from the table, scraps of wrapping paper fluttering to the ground around her. "Forget it."

"Sammy -"

"I have to get back to my classes," she snapped, cutting off her mother viciously. Without another word, she turned on her heel and strode from the room. It was only when she was back in her bunk did she realize she'd left the ship the Admiral gave her, and it infuriated her to realize she felt guilty about slighting him, collateral damage in her campaign against her mother.

* * *

Hackett was used to the internal war - the need to speak coupled with the pragmatic instinct to keep his opinions to himself - but this time, he ignored the usual song and dance. He faced Hannah, who had not said a word since her daughter had stormed off. "I have to say, I'm a little surprised you weren't keen on the idea of Sam joining up," he told her as their shuttle detached from the station and buzzed away.

She rounded on him, eyes bright. "Why would you be? You know - you know better than most."

"Do I?"

"Of course you do. Do you have a wife? Children? Do you have a family staking claim to half of your time and energy?"

"No."

"Would you have wanted one, if it meant being a less effective Admiral? Would you have slowly grown to resent that hypothetical wife for needing you when you needed to be a hero of the Alliance?"

He frowned. "But we're not talking about a hypothetical woman, are we?"

"Don't," she warned.

"Could you tell me what this is really about, Hannah?" he said, taking a step closer. "Let's not beat around the bush here."

Something hardened in her eyes. "Fine. Sammy is . . . well, she wouldn't join just for a few years. She'd sign away her entire life, and they'd use it all up. If they could use more than that, they would. She'd grow old saving people and giving, giving, giving until there was nothing left of her to give. And . . . maybe I don't want that for her. Maybe I think she's better than that." She paused, watching the station grown smaller behind them. "Maybe I think she could do better."

"So the Alliance was good enough for you, but not good enough for her?" he demanded.

"Don't look at me like that," she fired back. "I'm a mother. I'm allowed to want the best for my child. I'm allowed to want her to be safe."

"Even if it made her unhappy?"

That was the wrong thing to say. Hannah leaned closer, her eyes sparkling with fury. "You don't get a say what's to her detriment or not," she said coldly.

"You don't either," Hackett retorted. "She's almost an adult already. She's going to start making her own choices with or without your blessing."

Something crossed Hannah's expression, too quickly to be marked. "So you don't agree with me," she said, drawing back.

"Is that what this is about?" he asked her. "Of course I do. This life is a sacrifice. It meant losing . . . it meant losing some things I'll never get back."

"Exactly," Hannah said softly.

For the first time in years, she looked up at him with nearly the same eyes as she had before the end, before the break. And it was a surprise to realize some things never changed; that under those layers she carefully maintained, the ones of control and calm and mastery, she was just as tender as always, that she still knew enough to need. He bridged the gap between them and lightly traced his fingers over the curve of her cheek, the smattering of faded freckles there.

He expected her to jerk away. He only knew, beyond then, that she did not.

* * *

When word reached Alliance Command that Lieutenant Shepard had held off a batarian slaver attack on the colony of Elysium without a single civilian loss, it seemed to Hannah as if her predictions had finally come to pass in their entirety. The daughter she welcomed into her arms was a different woman, a changed woman. Her natural enthusiasm and passion had been tarnished, and when she stepped off the shuttle that brought her to Arcturus station, her gait was that of a woman who had stared death in the face, who had seen it come for others.

"Hey, Mom," Shepard said, muffled a little.

Hannah had many years to come to terms with her daughter's stubborn determination to become an Alliance officer, but at this moment she felt that sacrifice more deeply than she ever had in her life, even when she'd walked away from Steven without a word, nearly twenty-five years ago.

"Sammy," Hannah said, pressing a kiss on her brow. They were the same height now.

Steven presided over the Star of Terra ceremony, and Hannah saw clearly on his face that he was filled with the same troublesome combination of thoughts as she was; pride so large it felt that her chest would split down the seams, but still tempered with regret that such a beautiful, kind child would grow up to see her comrades die and live the rest of her life bearing the responsibility for those deaths, the weight of it heavy as a stone.

* * *

They sat in the observatory of her ship, a few days later. Shepard seemed to prefer the same drink as Hannah these days; whiskey on the rocks. They drank in silence, watching the faint light of the stars, twinkling in the void like silver stitches in a tapestry.

Shepard refused to wear her Star of Terra on her uniform, for she believed it would make her even more obvious to her comrades, but the damage was done; she'd become something of a celebrity. She let out a heavy sigh, and the ice cubes in her drink clinked softly in response. "Would it be too late to say that you're right?"

"About what this time?"

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Hilarious."

"I try."

Shepard was quiet for a moment, swirling the dregs of the drink in her glass. "I'm not sorry I joined the Alliance," she clarified. "But it's exactly like you said. It's . . . hard. And I wonder if I would have been happier doing something else. If I would have been better off never knowing what it was like to keep the guts of a friend from spilling out while he chokes on his own blood. If I never knew what it was like to hear the sound a man makes when he dies."

When Shepard had come back from Elysium, she'd refused to speak of it. Hannah had a suspicion, of course, but not tangible fact. Now she supposed she knew.

"Does it ever get any easier?" Shepard asked her, looking up from upturned hands.

"It gets more familiar," Hannah answered. "And it is worth it, in the end."

"I know," Shepard sighed. "Just . . . having trouble sleeping."

Hannah organized her thoughts into orderly lines, though a part of her ached to hear Shepard admit such a thing. Her precious child, all grown and now a wounded bird, holding a clipped wing to her chest and playing at health. She offered the first thing she thought would help at all - a vision of sunlight, where there were no shadows and dark memories.

"You've got a few days of leave left, right?" Hannah asked.

"Almost a week."

"I can apply for some leave myself. How about we go somewhere nice?"

"Like where?"

"I hear they have nice beaches in Florida. We could get sunburned together. You could see your old mother fail to pull off a bikini."

Shepard wrinkled her nose, but the smallest smile broke through. "Sounds like a blast."

"So how about it?"

Shepard sighed. "I don't know if I should pull you away. You've got a tour coming up." It was something Hannah herself might have said, in a different place.

"I'm never too busy to embarrass you, Sammy-bean."

Maybe it was the use of her daughter's childhood name or the sentiment, or perhaps some lovely combination of the two, but Shepard abandoned her half-hearted rejection. "If you're sure," she said in a small voice, and Hannah ached that her sweet, tender girl tried so hard to be like her, when she was such a broken down old thing herself, a creature who would have forgotten altogether what it was to love if not for her bright child.

* * *

Hackett didn't believe Shepard would have any use for their old ritual as a grown woman, a newly promoted Commander at that. They'd come to a tacit agreement early in Shepard's career; she was a subordinate and like her mother before her, she preferred to keep things strictly professional on the Alliance's time. But sometimes during leave or on her birthdays, she would relax and let that old smile out of its closet; almost as bright as it had been when she was young.

"So you got it?" Hackett asked her, folding his hands behind his back.

"_If 'it' is the new Kilimanjaro-class model, I sure did,"_ Shepard said, the image of her flickering a little through some interference. "_Thank you."_

He shifted slightly on his feet. "A tradition's a tradition, and all that."

"_Yeah, but you did__n't have to. I'm a grown ass woman. Excuse me, a grown woman."_

"You better be careful. I'll tell your mother about your rotten mouth."

"_You won't. She's not speaking to you right now."_

Dammit. This was true. "She'll make an exception."

"_Sure about that?"_

He laughed. "No."

"_So what did you do to make her mad this time?"_

"I shouldn't say."

"_Fine, fine."_ Shepard let out a breath in a huff, but as the silence grew longer something in her changed, as if she'd stumbled on something she preferred to forget, or something she perhaps tried to put to rest many years ago. "_I can't figure either of you out,"_ she admitted. "_Sometimes you're friends, sometimes she can't even look at you."_

Hackett said nothing.

"_When she brought you around that first time, it was because __I'd been harassing her about meeting my father."_ Shepard looked away, and he felt his heart sink. He knew what was coming, and he knew she wouldn't like the answer. He hadn't, all the years ago. _"You're not . . .?"_

"No," he said gently. "I'm sorry."

"_Did y__ou ever know him? My father?"_

"She hasn't told me any more than she's told you."

"_I thought so. I just . . . I thought I'd ask."_ She cleared her throat, straightening her uniform smartly. _"Consider the subject closed."_

He should have known that wouldn't be the end of it. He couldn't have known the manner in which he'd finally learn the truth, though, no more than he could have predicted what came after. He'd look at that conversation as the last day of his previous life, the one where only a bond bound them and not blood.

* * *

Shepard would always remember the last conversation she had with her mother. It had been a fight, the likes of which they'd never had before.

The day had begun innocuously enough. She'd come aboard her mother's ship as usual, and they'd gone to the observatory to share a drink. Hannah had been busy, parsing data while she listened to Shepard share the mundane details of her last assignment. It had been uneventful - that was all Hannah really took away.

Shepard used her mother's distraction to muster up the courage necessary to share what had been festering in her for nearly her whole life. They'd gone through their respective drinks when Shepard finally spoke up, clearing her throat awkwardly. "Mom?" she asked, her voice small.

"What is it?" Hannah asked distractedly.

"Can we talk about my father now?"

Hannah did not immediately look up from the datapad she was working on. "There is not much to say, Samantha."

"I want to know who he was." Shepard felt herself growing defensive, put off by her mother's coolness. Suddenly, she felt like she was six again while Hannah loomed above her, saying she was still too young to understand. "I think you owe me that much."

"But you do," Hannah said, and she finally met Shepard's gaze. "You know enough."

"How is that, now?"

"You know that I was here for you. That I raised you, and he did not. You know it's hard for me to speak about, yet even after all this time you still can't seem to let it go."

"How - how would I be able to let it go?" Shepard asked incredulously. "We're talking about my father - half the reason I'm here at all! That's something every kid needs."

"There are children who have grown up without fathers who are perfectly normal," Hannah said, radiating icy calm. "You're one of them."

"You know this for sure, do you?" Shepard retorted, and she balled her shaking hands at her sides. "Maybe I'd be different, if I had a dad. Better. Maybe I'd be able to process things like a functional adult instead of a neurotic. Maybe I'd be able to have relationships with men, instead of failing and fumbling at every possible turn. Maybe I'd at least know that I had two parents that cared about me, instead of one who treats my needs like an imposition!"

Shepard was too angry to see that once again, she'd pierced right through her mother's many layers straight to her heart. "You're saying I failed you," she said slowly.

"Maybe I am!"

Hannah stood, and Shepard had never seen her so detached. It was like looking into the face of a stranger, wearing a much loved face. "Then I have failed you. But I can't tell you about your father. I never will."

She would have liked to hurl a thousand barbs at her mother, each one of them breaking her down bit by bit until she crumpled and confessed everything that she'd hidden over the years. She wanted her mother to beg for her forgiveness and summon her father on the holo - whoever the hell he was - and only then would Shepard begin to consider forgiving her.

But instead, she turned on her heel and stalked out of the observatory, leaving her mother alone with datapad still firmly in hand. She imagined that as soon as she'd left the room, her mother sat down and went back to work, as if Shepard had never been there at all. She couldn't have known that one tear chased down her mother's cheek before she wiped it away.

* * *

A week later, that righteous anger that had filled her solidified into regret, and it would never leave her, not as long as she lived.

"Commander Shepard?" said the voice on the comm. She detected a note of reproach, and immediately she knew what he would say. Her hands shook and her heart shuddered in her chest, as if she was the one who had died and not -

"No," she whispered.

"I'm sorry." The man cleared his throat, determined to say his piece. "There were batarian slavers, they . . . they-"

Shepard terminated the call before he could finish.

This moment was the rest of her life. This shock, this sudden onslaught of a cruel void where a woman once was - the realization that she was gone, and those barbed words Shepard had said were the last things she would ever say to her mother, the woman who had given her everything, and embraced the abuses of youth in return. Shepard might as well have etched those words on her mother's tombstone, a shameful epitaph that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

* * *

Hackett received Hannah Shepard's final will and testament on a cold, rainy day in Vancouver. Spring was near, the air wet and lush, trees rustling overhead in the breeze. Shepard stood at his side like a crumbling statue; she hadn't spoken once since this whole ordeal started, and when he rested one hand on her shoulder, she flinched at his touch.

He thought of the last thing he'd said to Hannah, two days before she'd been killed. Her back was straight, her face a mask of calm, just as always. But he'd leaned closer and told her that he was sorry, and that if he'd had a chance, he would have done it all differently.

"No you wouldn't have," she told him, but her voice was tender. "I wouldn't have either."

"You don't know that," he insisted.

"I suppose I don't." She peered closer. "What brought this on?"

He didn't have the words she wanted. After some reflection, he thought perhaps it had to do with her presence in his life for all these long years; how it had begun, how they had loved each other and murmured promises that couldn't possibly stand in the daylight, how it had ended. He thought that despite everything, he was happiest with her. Despite everything, he wouldn't have traded her for anything else. "I don't know," he deflected. "Just thought you should know."

"Right."

Now he stood with her daughter in the rain, stepping over the threshold of the law office when Hannah's lawyer opened the door for them. It was even more obvious today than any other; Sam Shepard was nearly identical to her mother, like a photograph with a few deliberate changes made in the interest of expression or copyright. The nose was slightly different, and her eyes were blue instead of green. Where Hannah had been calm and cold with ease, her daughter struggled with the hard things of the world. Perhaps it was youth. Perhaps it was written deeply on the fabric of her character, etched with a heavy hand.

Hannah left everything to her daughter, and there was enough that she could have retired if she wanted. But when prodded, Shepard only shook her head, her hands curling in her lap, her shoulder hunched and high. She left not long after.

Hackett rose to follow when the lawyer held out a hand. "Captain Shepard left something for you as well," he said, and he rummaged through the envelope before finally producing a small OSD. A final message, then. Appropriate.

"Thank you," Hackett said.

* * *

He avoided the message, at first.

It was easy to be a courageous man as an Admiral - where his words were law and his judgment respected - but in the realm of the personal, he struggled. Just as always; reaching and grasping, and always the futile effort to keep smooth as the surface of a lake, for what seethed beneath was unwieldy and impossible to articulate.

He thought this message would have been the final condemnation. An accusation, a brand; he had let her leave all those years ago. He hadn't tried to stop her, though he'd wanted to. He dreamed about the things she would have thought necessary to remind him from beyond death; heated words, clenched hands, nails digging into flesh.

It was much more than that.

_"Hello, Steven_," the recording began. It had been taken recently - he cursorily checked the timestamp, and it indicated about a week before she'd been killed. It took conscious effort not to reply reflexively - she so rarely used his name.

_"I had resigned myself to never sharing with you what I am about to, for as long as either of us lived. It was my sacrifice, and my gift to you. I always thought that I owed you that much."_

The flickering echo of Hannah paused, pursing her lips as she struggled to find the words. _"However, when I do die Sam will be left alone, and I can't bear the thought. She is so much better than me - so much better than either of us. She deserved more, and I have failed to give it to her._

_"I . . ."_ she trailed off, laughing a little. "_You asked me in the very beginning, if she was yours. I told you no."_

He sucked in a hard breath. It seemed as if there was no longer any air in the room.

_"I thought it would be better to lie, because the truth would have undermined everything I tried to do when I left. You would have stayed, if I let you. You would have stayed and held the thought of what could have been your life in the Alliance close, and though I don't believe you would have ever taken it out on me or Sammy, you would have been miserable. You would have been a husband and a father, when you were meant to be a leader."_

The rage that nearly choked him was a surprise. It hadn't been her place to make that decision for him, dammit! It hadn't been her responsibility to shoulder the burden of his ambitions while subverting her own. And all this time, Sam had been his. He threaded his hands through his hair and swallowed, watching Hannah speak and holding those words close.

_"I'd never meant to have children. You know this."_ She smiled ruefully. _"But once she was there . . . I couldn't. I needed her. She was a piece of you, the one piece I could keep."_

The image of Hannah seemed to steel herself, then; she pulled straight and looked down at him with such a familiar expression of reproach that he covered his mouth with his hand. God damn her, that stubborn, horrible woman. He missed her so much_. "So in the light of this, I must ask you two things."_ Her lips twitched. _"I can just see you now; furious as ever. Maybe you've smashed one of your model ships, maybe not. You're thinking I have no right to ask you anything, not after what I kept from you all these years, and you'd be right. But these are not for my sake, but for Sam's. For your daughter's._

_"First, you must watch over her for as long as you live. She must not die young, though that seems the province of us soldiers. She's always gone her own way, and she has some noble idea of saving the galaxy one small battle at a time stuck in her brain - by the way, I'm pretty sure she inherited that from you - and so while I imagine you'll never be able to stop her from throwing herself in harm's way, you must make certain that no harm comes to her despite this. You're an Admiral, and you have that power. Use it._

_"Secondly . . . you must never tell her what you know. You must pretend you don't know it yourself."_

"Why?!" he shouted at the holo, the faint image of Hannah staring down at him, impassive as stone.

_"You know why it has to be like this,"_ Hannah said quietly, almost as if she could hear him_. "You are military first and family second. You might be able to put it in such terms in your mind, but she will not. She will cling to you desperately, and disobey orders in the interest of pleasing you or keeping you safe." _Hannah paused._ "I hope you see the other end of what I'm asking you. She is your daughter, but she is a Commander first. Treat her as such."_

"God damn it," Hackett said hoarsely.

_"I know these seem like conflicting orders,_" Hannah said, staring at some place above his head. "_I trust you to see them out. Maybe you no longer hold any love for me, but you are an honorable man. You'll do the right thing, just like you always have."_

He wasn't so sure of that, anymore. He tried, though. He did his best.

_"You should know . . ."_ She trailed off, her slim hands curling. "_You should know I meant what I said. That I wouldn't take it back. Not even after the end."_ She wiped at her eyes. _"I might have said something things I didn't mean, though. I'm not perfect. But all in all . . . well, I'd say it was worth it. I'd say you were worth it._

_"Goodbye, Steven." _

He sat in the silent darkness of his room long after the holo had ceased playback, and thought that it might be possible to drown in the contents of his thoughts, to choke on anger so sharp and sorrow so deep, and yet still be capable of loving, even after everything.

Anger didn't last long, not when he remembered what it had been like to touch her, what it had been like to discover he was capable of loving perhaps the most difficult person in his world, and that somehow she loved him enough to destroy what they'd had.

He would obey. It would be the offering he left, the sacrifice to her memory. It would be penance and forgiveness in equal measure.

* * *

_"What do you need me to do?" Shepard had asked him at the apex of the Crucible, their last hope. It was as if the last three years had been brought to bear in those seven words, as if they encompassed everything between him and the dead Shepard that haunted him still. He heard the thousand times she'd said the same in an strange echoing chorus, a thousand Shepard's ready to throw away her life for the sake of duty and honor. He'd never been prouder of anyone in his life. He'd never hated himself more._

* * *

"Admiral Hackett?" said one of the nurses, peering up from her datapad into the waiting room. Her uniform was smudged with blood, and a tendril of pale hair had pulled free from her messy bun, curling on her cheek.

He stood slowly, straightening his filthy uniform and tucking a box under his arm. "Here."

The nurse looked him up and down before nodding once, curtly. "This way."

"Is she -?"

"She's stable, for now," the nurse said. Her skin was greyish, eyes heavily circled by exhaustion. It was the face of a weary, harrowed survivor, a visage they all shared.

_'For now'_, she'd said. But not later. "Right," he echoed.

The nurse rounded the corner and strode into Shepard's room, clicking her tongue as she changed the IV and noted Shepard's vitals. He thought he had prepared for the sight of her, but one glance and he knew it for a lie. Her limbs were bound in plaster, and a tube protruded from her mouth, coiling over her thin body like a snake. Every inch of her skin was lacerated or bruised, and he wondered how she hadn't bled to death on the Citadel, high above the world.

"You said she was stable," Hackett accused hoarsely.

"She is. They put her in a coma so she could heal," the nurse explained without looking up, marking off something on her datapad.

"Will she survive?"

The nurse didn't answer immediately, typing furiously with one finger. "We don't know yet," she said finally. "It could go either way."

He swallowed. "Is there anything else I should know?"

For the first time since she'd called his name in the waiting room, the nurse looked at him fully, and he felt at that moment if he was being judged, weighed as worthy or not.

"You're next of kin, so you should probably know," she said slowly, brows pulled low. "She's pregnant."

He blinked. "How?"

"Well . . . if she'd been with -"

"For the love of god, I know how it happened," he snapped. "How is it possible, considering her injuries?"

The nurse turned to the broken form of Shepard, and in the silence her respirator seemed especially loud, the small blips of her pulse the only thing marking the time as it passed. "We don't know," the nurse said softly. "No one knows. It shouldn't be possible."

"And is the child . . . all right? Undamaged?"

"For now."

Hackett let out a sigh. "May I sit with her?"

"Of course. Visiting hours are . . ." the nurse trailed off. "Never mind. Don't worry about it."

After she'd bustled from the room, Hackett took a seat beside Shepard, settling so that his knees pressed against the plastic frame of her bed. He felt impossibly old as he looked down at her broken body, ancient in ways only Hannah Shepard herself would have been able to understand. Her once beautiful red hair had been burned away by the explosion, and her breathing was so shallow, it seemed paradoxical that she was still alive. She hovered in that grey place between life and death, where it was so easy to fall off the wrong end.

He thought of Hannah's final demands as he watched their daughter cling to life, stubborn even when broken, even when it seemed like she would never live again. He thought of the day they'd met, the days they'd loved, what they'd given up for duty, and what they'd kept because they were human and selfish.

Yet, as he marked each of her slow, shallow breaths, he held that promise closer. Shepard had kept herself alive, and this time it had been without his interference. She'd done her duty without shrugging away, and he knew that if Hannah Shepard were still alive, she would look at her daughter with such pride, she wouldn't be able to speak. He knew that she was the best of both of them. She was bright and stubborn, dutiful and honorable, and she knew enough to love and be loved. The child growing in her was evidence enough of that.

Carefully, so as not to disturb the IV threaded through her arm, he placed the model ship box on the table beside her bed, and folded his hands around hers.


End file.
